Born into an Amasya family that spent two generations in the service of princely courts, Şâhî Ahmed Çelebi combined the work of a scribe with that of a poet. Süleyman Bey, the poet's father, was matbah emini, the officer in charge of the kitchens and provisions, at the court of Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), the son of Sultan Bayezid II, while the prince governed Amasya. Some forty years later Ahmed Çelebi attached himself to Şehzade Mustafa, son of Süleyman the Magnificent, who had come to the same town as sanjak governor, and became one of the secretaries of his divan. He died in 960 (1553), after the prince was put to death. The Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar records him as a man of letters, poet and scribe, and adds that his poems were burned.

The Entry in Amasya Tarihi

The entry Şâhî Ahmed Çelebi-Eminzâde, which Hüsameddin placed among the names beginning with the letter shin in his eleventh volume, runs to only a few sentences:

Amasya vâlisi Şehzâde Sultân Ahmed'in matbah emîni Süleyman Bey'in oğludur. Amasya'da tevellüd ve tahsîl-i ilim ve edeb edib cizye kâtibi oldu. Ba'dehû Amasya vâlisi olarak gelen Şehzâde Sultân Mustafa'ya intisâb ederek divânı ketebesinden oldu. 960 senesi şevvâlinde şehzâdenin şehâdetinden sonra vefât etdi. Edîb, şâir, kâtib idi. Âsâr-ı şiiriyyesi yandı.

Rendered into plain English: a son of Süleyman Bey, matbah emini of Şehzade Sultan Ahmed, governor of Amasya. Born in Amasya, he studied learning and letters and became a clerk of the cizye, the poll tax. Later he entered the service of Şehzade Sultan Mustafa, who came to Amasya as governor, and became one of the secretaries of his divan. He died after the prince's martyrdom in Şevval of the year 960. Cultivated in letters, he wrote poetry and worked as a scribe. His poetical works were burned.

Life

His year of birth is unknown. His father's post at Şehzade Ahmed's court shows that the family either came to Amasya with that court or rose from the circle around it; the entry says nothing more. Ahmed governed Amasya for some thirty years after Bayezid II came to the throne in 1481, so Süleyman Bey's term as matbah emini falls within those years. It is reasonable to suppose that Ahmed Çelebi was born at roughly the same time, though this dating is no more than an estimate.

After studying learning and letters in his youth, he entered the office of the cizye. Keeping the registers of the poll tax levied on non-Muslims was the first rung for many who took up the pen in Amasya. When Şehzade Mustafa was sent from Manisa to Amasya in 948 (June 1541), Ahmed Çelebi was taken into his divan as a secretary. The prince's twelve years in Amasya were a time when the town teemed with poets and men of the pen. Zârî Mehmed Çelebi, who served as a secretary in the same divan, was also a scribe who wrote verse; the tezkires call him a man of Tokat, while Hüsameddin counts him as an Amasya man. Şâhî's own entry states plainly that he was born in Amasya.

Mustafa was strangled in his father's tent at the army camp near Konya Ereğlisi on 27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553). The sentence in the entry places Şâhî's death immediately after this event. Taken literally, the poet must have died within the three or four days left in the month of Şevval, that is, a few days after his master. Yet the word "Şevval" may equally belong to the prince's death alone, in which case Şâhî's death can only be dated "after 1553". Hüsameddin gives no cause of death. A secretary dying in the same days as the master whose divan had ceased to exist invites a story of grief, but the source tells no such story.

His Poetry and Lost Works

None of Şâhî Ahmed Çelebi's poems has been found. Hüsameddin's phrase "his poetical works were burned" can be read in two ways: that the poems written in the poet's own hand perished in a fire, or that the copies Hüsameddin made of them burned with his own papers. In other entries the author laments texts he had seen and noted with the words "alas, they were burned", and the short sentence here most probably refers to the same loss. Nor is any poem bearing his name known among the pieces written on Şehzade Mustafa's death and preserved in the tradition of the elegies for the prince.

A Shared Pen Name

Other poets used the pen name "Şâhî" in the sixteenth century. The one most closely tied to Amasya is Şehzade Bayezid, another son of Süleyman the Magnificent. Bayezid became sanjak governor of Amasya in 1558, five years after his brother Mustafa's death, and wrote his poems under the pen name Şâhî. Persian poetry, too, has a well-known poet called Emîr Şâhî. A ghazal or couplet circulating in anthologies under the signature "Şâhî" is ownerless in such a crowd; to give it to Ahmed Çelebi the scribe would need some support beyond the signature. Since Ahmed Çelebi certainly died before Prince Bayezid came to Amasya, the poems from Bayezid's Amasya years have nothing to do with him.

Chronology

After 1481: Şehzade Ahmed is sanjak governor of Amasya; Süleyman Bey is his matbah emini.

948 (1541): Şehzade Mustafa becomes sanjak governor of Amasya; Ahmed Çelebi moves from the cizye office to the secretariat of his divan.

27 Şevval 960 (6 October 1553): Şehzade Mustafa is killed at the Ereğli camp; Şâhî Ahmed Çelebi dies soon after, within the same month according to the entry.

Bibliography

Online sources